


Making Up for Wasted Time

by dragyn42



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-10
Updated: 2009-08-10
Packaged: 2020-03-01 04:10:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18792715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragyn42/pseuds/dragyn42
Summary: Revelations cause Harry to be less sure about decisions he’s made.





	Making Up for Wasted Time

**Author's Note:**

> For the hpgw_otp Passage of Time Challenge. I haven’t actually signed up yet, the day it’s due, but I saw the prompt and the story just wanted to be written. I’ll go sign up once this is posted :)
> 
>  _ETA:_ This is now an official entry and listed for the prompt 'waste of time'

“What are you thinking, Harry?” she asked.

“I... I don’t know. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”

“What did? Talk to me, Harry.”

When he broke up with her, it was to keep her safe. He couldn’t do what he needed to unless he knew she was safe. He didn’t want to spend all that time away from her. It was unfair that Voldemort and the Death Eaters were causing him to waste time going after them instead of being with her. But if she was safe, it was time well spent.

It wasn’t.

“You were supposed to be safe,” he mumbled.

Ginny understood, or thought she did, what he was referring to. “I was safe, as safe as anyone could be. I’m here, now.”

“Not safe enough.” His voice was quiet and still devoid of emotion. He knew things had been hard, he’d heard the rumors. But to find out directly from the one person who was at the one place that was supposed to be safe threw him into an emotional quandary he wasn’t ready to handle. Not yet. “I... We could have...”

Ginny hadn’t expected this reaction from Harry. They found some time to be alone, and one of the first things they wanted to do was share everything that had happened, to understand what had occurred during their time apart.

“Harry, look at me.” She waited nearly a minute, but he still remained looking desolately down. She put her hand under his chin and, when he didn’t flinch or otherwise pull away, she maneuvered his face until it was looking at hers – though it took a little longer before he would meet her eyes. “Harry, I hated that decision. I thought it was unfair, single minded and stupidly noble of you. I deserved to be with you, helping you.”

“I know.”

“Or so I thought,” she continued as if he hadn’t said anything. “The first time they used the Cruciatus on me, they said they would stop if only I told them where you were, what you were doing.”

Harry’s eyes hardened, the first sign of real emotion since her revelations, and she continued. “Despite the pain, and wanting nothing more than for it to end, in that moment, I knew why you did what you did.”

“Tell me, please, because right now, I don’t even know why I did it. It was wasted time, wasted effort. You should hav...” His breath hitched. “You should have been with me.”

“No, I really shouldn’t have.” She stared forcefully into his hard, green eyes, willing him to listen. “I still had the Trace on me, Harry. How could I have helped? At least here I could perform magic and use it to fight back. At that moment, I was happy, despite the pain, that I didn’t know where you were. I wouldn’t have given you up – I love you too much. But the thing was, I didn’t know. I _couldn’t_ give you up.

“Later, when they realized I had nothing of importance to give up to them – at least not about you – they took to taunting me. They would use curses as they told me that they were doing even worse to you. I figured if they really had you, if they were torturing you, they would make it known. You were Undesirable Number One, they would want everyone to know.

“Since I didn’t know where you were, that meant they didn’t have you, and I could believe you were safe, doing what you needed to do to get rid of Tom and his followers.”

As she stared into his eyes, the hardness went away, at least a little, as he thought about what she said.

“I... I watched you on the map, every night. Made sure you were safe. I was wrong.”

“No you weren’t. Sure, they were practicing curses on us, but they weren’t going to kill us – at least not the Purebloods. Blood Traitors or not, they could force us into things once they had won. So, for the most part, I _was_ safe. And you didn’t know about the torture. You watched me on the map to know that I was safe, just like I knew you were safe because I didn’t know where you were. You weren’t really safe, were you?”

“No, not really.” What she said seemed to make sense. “My head tells me you’re right, but heart still says it was wasted time. I shouldn’t have left you. I should have stayed with you. We would be together now.”

“We are,” she replied simply.

“This... That’s not what I meant.”

“I know what you meant, and it’s what I meant too.”

“But, we... I...”

“Right: you. I know why you did it. You needed me safe, we said that already. But I never really accepted it, Harry. You were going away, that was it. When it was all over, and you had won, if you didn’t want to be together then... well, at that point I would work on accepting it. But instead, you came to me, eventually, and here we are. Unless I’m misunderstanding why you wanted to talk to me alone?” she smirked at him.

“No,” he blushed. “I was hoping to ask you to, um, take me back once we were done talking.”

“Good, then there’s nothing to worry about. As far as I’m concerned we never broke up. Not really.”

She leaned forward and kissed him. He kissed her back, bringing he hands up into her hair. He loved running his fingers through her hair, which was good as she loved it, too. As their kissing became more intense, the pair slowly lowered to a horizontal position on the ground. Harry’s hands left her hair and began wandering over her body. They had made it this far, and a little further, in their relationship the prior school year, and they were both remembering how much they missed it.

When they paused to catch their breath, faces flushed and hands now under shirts and on skin, Harry muttered, “Waited too long for this.”

After the battle, things weren’t any less calm than they had been during it. Harry needed to talk to Dumbledore, to work out the last of everything. He wanted to run to Ginny now that it was all over, but he didn’t want the last of what needed to be done to interfere. It look longer than he anticipated, time he didn’t really want to lose.

When he finally got back to the great hall, families and friends were all trying to track down each other, hoping that they were all alive. The Weasleys were comforting each other, mourning the loss of Fred, still too recent to be fully real, while acknowledging that they survived. Harry wasn’t going to intrude on that. More time away from Ginny.

He made his way to Gryffindor tower to get the sleep he so desperately needed – though he would have rather talked to Ginny first. The following morning, he simply couldn’t find any time to spend alone with her. Between the Ministry, the school and everything else, there was so much to do, so much to arrange.

Then came the funerals: Fred, Colin, Moony and Tonks. The Memorial was after that. He went with the Weasleys, always with them and always next to Ginny, but they still hadn’t had time to talk.

It came to a head earlier that morning, nearly three and a half weeks after the battle. He grabbed Ginny at the breakfast table and told her they needed to talk alone. It looked like Mrs. Weasley was going to interrupt, probably with yet something else that needed to get done, but she was quieted by a rare, stern glare from her husband.

“Too long, more time wasted.”

Ginny sighed. “You know what, Harry, you’re right. Last year, the past few weeks, all of it was wasted time.”

“I...”

“So now you just have to make it up to me.”

Harry seemed to be slow in processing her demand. Finally he responded with an eloquent, “How?”

“Like this,” she explained, before she started snogging him passionately. After several more minutes, she broke away and said, “And Harry?”

He responded fairly inarticulately, still a bit addled.

“A whole year. You have a lot of wasted time to make up for.” She waited another moment before sliding her hands across the skin of his back, under his shirt, before continuing, “So you just do _whatever_ you need to do to make up for it.”

Ginny pulled his shirt off, and then did away with her own, her bra standing out against her pale, freckled skin. All cognitive thought seemed to have left Harry’s eyes, though he did – somehow – manage a stuttered, “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely,” she replied, fire now in her eyes. “It was a _lot_ of wasted time.”

No one commented at their disheveled appearance when they showed back up at the Burrow long past lunch.


End file.
